1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a paper discharge device, which discharges received paper from a discharge port.
2. Description of the Related Art
At present, there exist many devices (apparatus), which are designed so as to automatically deliver to users various paper such as passes of toll roads, admission tickets of various facilities, or rail road tickets of various transportation, and statements of account, etc. issued from automated teller machines (ATM), cash dispensers (CD), or the like. In general, a paper discharge device is incorporated into those devices, which conveys the paper, after receiving the paper printed by a printer, or the like, to a discharge port, and discharges the printed paper from the discharge port.
The discharge devices of this type are so constructed, in many cases, as to cause the received paper to stay (wait) inside the devices until processings such as printing and cutting are ended, and as to convey the paper to the discharge port at the time of the processings are ended.
This is because, if the paper is discharged from the discharge port before the processings are not ended, there is a fear of causing degradation of printing quality or cutting failure due to the paper being pulled or pressed during the processings.
There is employed as a specific construction a construction in which the waiting path is formed so as to have a long length, and the received paper is caused to wait in the path until the processings are ended. In this case, it is preferred that the length of the waiting path is made longer as much as possible in order to deal with the paper having a long length. However, when the length of the waiting path becomes longer, the size of the entire device becomes larger. As a result, it becomes difficult to achieve the downsizing (more compacting). Accordingly, it is desired to make the waiting path longer while achieving the downsizing of the entire device.
By the way, there are many cases where personal information, confidential matters, or the like of the user may be printed on the paper to be delivered to the user. For example, on the statement of account issued from ATM, CD, or the like, there are printed a card number, a trade amount, the balance, and the like. Therefore, when handling this type of statement of account, employment of security countermeasures is required so as to keep the paper away from other person's eye.
As one of the security countermeasures, there is known a discharge device, which employs the countermeasure involving automatically collecting the statement of account when the discharged statement of account was not received by the user. Specifically, there is known a discharge device having a construction in which, after discharging the statement of account from the discharge port, when the statement of account was not received even if a given period of time has elapsed, the statement of account is reconveyed to a collection chamber, and thrown into the collection chamber.
As this type of discharge device, for example, there is known a paper discharge device as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-261228.
The paper discharge device includes: a first conveyance path connected to an input port; a second conveyance path, one side of which is merged into the first conveyance path, and another side of which is connected to the discharge port; a third conveyance path, one side of which is merged into the first conveyance path, and another side of which is connected to a paper stock space and a collection space; and conveyance mechanisms, such as driving rollers, for selectively feeding the paper conveyed through the first conveyance path into the second conveyance path or the third conveyance path, to thereby convey the paper to the discharge port, the paper stock space, or the collection space.
In the paper discharge device thus constructed, when the paper is input into the first conveyance path through the input port, the conveyance mechanism temporarily conveys the paper into the paper stock space through the third conveyance path. During this period, the paper is subjected to printing just before the input port. Specifically, the paper is adapted to wait and stay within the paper stock space until the printing is ended and the paper is cut.
Then, when the printing and cutting are ended, the conveyance mechanism feeds the paper into the second conveyance path while reversely conveying the paper in the third conveyance path. Then, the paper is conveyed through the second conveyance path to the discharge port. With this, the paper is discharged from the discharge port so that a part of the paper is projected outside.
Here, if a given period of time has elapsed as it is without the paper being received, the conveyance mechanism conveys the paper reversely in the second conveyance path so that the paper is withdrawn from the discharge port. Then, the conveyance mechanism conveys the paper again to the third conveyance path, and also feeds into the collection space while passing through the paper stock space. With this, the paper is collected within the collection space.
Like this, when the paper was not received by the user, it is constructed such that the paper is automatically collected into the collection chamber, and security countermeasures so as to keep the paper away from other person's eye are performed.
Moreover, the third conveyer path is a path communicated to a paper stock space, and functions as a waiting path for causing the paper to wait until the processings such as cutting are ended. In this case, the third conveyance path is curved, and is designed so as to contribute to a downsizing of an entire device although the third conveyance path is long.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional paper discharge device, there still remain the following problems.
In general, there are many cases where the paper used for the statement of account is originally roll paper wound around into roll shape. Specifically, after pulling out from the roll paper, the paper is used as the statement of account, etc. after subjecting the paper to a printing process and a cutting process. For that reason, the paper is inevitably liable to impart the rounding in the conveying direction (paper curling).
Therefore, the collected paper does not keep the level state within the collection space, and is liable to round due to the paper curling into a bulky state.
By the way, the third conveyance path is curved so as to direct toward the collection space, and hence the paper waiting within the paper stock space is hung down into the collection space. In this case, when the paper which has already been collected are bulky due to paper curling within the collection space, the paper in a waiting state is liable to be entangled with the collected paper, and there was a risk of causing paper jam.